The Gift
by Nightmare Muffin
Summary: Derpy has lived with her Strabismus her entire life. She has grown accustomed to her unique way of seeing things, but an unexpected visit from one of her friends teaches Derpy that there's more to the world than what she thinks she's been seeing. She has 'the gift' to see things that most other ponies could only ever dream of!


Anypony in Ponyville could tell you that in their quaint little town, nestled in the valleys that were overlooked by Equestria's capital city of Canterlot, there lived a very unique little pony. All of the towns residents were, of course, special and unique in their own right, but anypony who was any pony could testify that there was one little grey mare in particular who held the title for being Ponyville's most unique, hooves down.

Far at the little town's limits, just shy of Fluttershy's cottage near the Everfree forest, in a sturdy one-story house, a flaxen-maned grey mare named Ditzy "Derpy Hooves" Do took up residence. One could say that quite a unique feature that Derpy had was a pair of strong, feathered wings protruding from her back, both of which were comfortably folded at her sides as the grey mare lie in bed, adrift in slumber as Celestia's bright, golden sun was raised over the far horizon. But no, those wings upon the pony pegasi were not Derpy's most unique feature. Though Ponyville consisted of mainly earth ponies, there were other Pegasus ponies amongst the town's residents, and even some unicorns!

As the sun inched ever higher into the sky, and the towns ponies began to stir, the small alarm clock that occupied Derpy's bedside table went off, filling the room with the sweet voice of DJ Pon-3 to remind the mare that she, too, should rise out of bed.

"Goooooood Morning, Equestria! It's your fresh beat- busting DJ Pon-3 comin' to ya live, in the studio with my buddy Neon Lights, and were here to make ya shake your flanks right outta' bed with some sick beats-"

A hoof slipped out from beneath the covers; a groggy moan signaling that the once motionless lump that lie beneath them was beginning to find herself drawn out of the dream she was having. The exposed hoof fumbled for a moment, not quite able to reach the alarm clock, and instead, groped only empty air. The groggy moan soon tired to a frustrated groan as through the fading state of unconsciousness, Derpy realized that her first efforts to quiet the sounds that cut through her once quiet bedroom were futile.

With great effort, she reluctantly willed her body to move; rolling from her stomach onto her side; one on her wings trapped beneath her weight. Again, she tried to reach out for that blasted snooze button. Closer this time, her hoof tapped the bedside table's hard, smooth surface. Where was it? Darting this way and that, the extended appendage missed its mark completely, hitting the pesky device and knocking it from its perch. As it clattered noisily to the floor, the mare's eyes flew open.

"Oh muffins." Derpy sighed; bottom lip forming into a cute pout. Those eyes; those wide sleep-clouded pools of tangerine that slowly scanned their surroundings in the gentle rays of morning light that seeped into her room between the folds of curtain were, in fact, what most ponies in town deemed Derpy's most identifiable feature. What made them; her, unique was the fact that they were misaligned. She had long since been diagnosed with Strabismus after many uneventful trips to multiple vision corrective specialists in her fiillyhood; after many physicians had failed to diagnose her condition properly.

It was only after many years that Derpy had learned to accept this condition of hers; in spite of the downsides, such as being bulled and ostracized by some of her pony peers and even some adults; in spite of the awkward clumsiness that came with the skewed depth perception- as it was what made her special, for better or worse. With due time, she had come to realize that it was only by accepting who she was, flaws and all; along with learning to accept everypony else, neighsayers included, was what earned her her cutie mark; an image of seven, simple and sweet bubbles on her flank that Derpy liked to think represented her personality; simple, colorful and reflective, fun, yet at the same time, fragile.

Ears splayed, Derpy drew her head from her plush pillow, a thin string of drool attempting to keep her and the soft mound from parting. Her body felt like lead; her movements sluggish as she drew her foreleg up to wipe at the bit of slobber glistening on her lip. Tears accumulated in the corners of her eyes as she let loose a yawn,and they too were wiped away.

Leaning over the side of her mattress, the groggy mare fumbled for her fallen alarm clock; a hoof sweeping the floor and eventually grabbing the device in order to return it to its rightful place. " I'm up, I'm up. " she muttered to no pony in particular. In the ever watchful eye of her Ponville friends, Derpy Hooves was naturally bright and bubbly, but mornings were not a friend of hers.

In spite of her words, she remained motionless on the bed; considering, for a moment, on closing her eyes and drifting back off to sleep. Perhaps for just a few more minutes... Her pillow had felt so soft; so cozy and comfortable.

But a loud knocking at her door prevented her from entertaining herself with the idea for very long.

One of Derpy's eyes drifted to the numerical display on her alarm clock to determine the time, while the other eye inadvertently settled on the ceiling. It was only 6:15! Who in the name of Celestia would be at her door at such an hour?!

Wriggling out from beneath her sheets, the mare silently wished that she could at least be given time to make herself presentable. Her golden mane was unkempt, her grey coat unbrushed, her wings in need of preening, and she was almost certain that she had a mild case of morning breath, but being the considerate pony she thought herself to be, she didn't want to keep her visitor waiting.

Biting her tongue, Derpy swallowed any complaints she might've had, and instead adopted a smile. Somepony was considerate enough to pay her a visit! It may have been a little too early for her liking, and most certainly unannounced, but she couldn't write off that it was a nice gesture from, well, whoever was at her door.

Moving as quickly as her body would allow, she slid off the bed; careful not to misjudge just where her mattress ended, and fall flat onto her face as she had done yesterday morning, and every day prior.

Successfully out of bed without any bruises, the accident-prone filly trotted out of the room, and to the front door where her guest awaited. Pulling the wooden barrier back ever so slightly, she gazed out of the small opening at a familiar face.

"Good morning, Derpy!" Pinkie Pie's ever- enthusiastic greeting almost knocked the bewildered grey mare off her hooves, and when it didn't, the excitable, puffy- haired, pink party pony burst through the slightly ajar entryway and pounced on the unsuspecting victim as if Derpy was her prey, to enveloped her in a near suffocating hug.

The startled grey pony could do little other than blink her skewed eyes, which had become more vibrant without sleep clouding them. "Wha-?" She sputtered, realizing that Pinkie had knocked her onto her back. Derpy's hooves were drawn up to her chest to rest limply on either side of Pinkie's shoulders, while the squeeeeeing pink pony snuggled her and giggled infectiously. "Uh, good m-" Derpy began, only to be cut off, mid-sentence.

"I hope you're bright eyed and bushy tailed, today!" Pinkie beamed. "I know I am!" Leaning in closer, The renowned pony of parties stared intensely into the bottomed mare's yellow-orange optics while bulging out her own pools of cerulean, as clean and clear as Equestria's rivers and streams.

"I made extra certainly sure that my tail was just as positively brushed and bushy as it could most absopositively be!" A moment in between breaths allowed the pink party mare to draw her forelegs from around Derpy's neck and turn to wave her rounded pink rump in her friend's face; her fluffy, frizzy tail tickling Derpy's muzzle.

Head turned ever so slightly away from Pinkie's posterior, out of demure, rather than disgust, Derpy Hooves scrunched her nose as those pink hairs on that bright, bouncy tail seemed to intentionally assault her nostrils. "I can see that." Before her misaligned eyes, Pinkie Pie seemed to have somehow sprouted a second tail.

Unable to contain herself, the rosy mare bounced, continuing to put together words that formed sentences at one-hundred miles-per-hour. "And so, I really couldn't wait and decided to pay a visit to allllll my bestest best of Ponyville friends a pony could ever ask for, to see if everypony else was just as bright and bushy-tailed as ME, because that's what totally awesome, spectacular, fantasteriffic friends do! Isn't that great?!" Grinning from ear to ear, she didn't bother to wait for Derpy to collect her thoughts and speak, before she disappeared from sight.

Those wall-eyes scanned each way they pointed, this way and that, for the mysteriously vanishing pink party mare, with no success. Cautiously, Derpy picked herself up to right herself onto all four hooves.

She had wondered just where Pinkie Pie had gone off to. It wasn't like her to depart without breathing a word of goodbye. Deciding to shrug off the pink mare's sudden vanishing act, Derpy walked toward the door and nudged it shut. Turning, she took a step back toward her bedroom, when a soft, warm wall of pink popped up right in front of her face.

Derpy screamed, spooked. Her heart rapidly thudded in her chest. Strong wings fanned out and she flew high into the air; forgetting the distance from the floor to the ceiling. A loud thunk sounded in the foyer as the Pegasus' head connected with one of the rafters and sent stars exploding behind her eyelids. Volcanoes of searing pain erupted in her head, and hot tears squeezed their way out of her tightly shut eyes. Shakily, she descended and winced; a hoof coming up to nurse the area atop her head.

Pinkie gasped, leaning in close to the grey mare. "Are you ok, Derpy?" She asked, some of the excitement fading from her voice to make room for a tone of concern.

"Yeah," she said in response. She was trying to focus on Pinkie's voice rather than the fierce pain shooting through her skull. Truth be told, she had been in worse accidents, thanks to her accident prone nature that stemmed from her usually misjudging height or distances, as a result of her misaligned eyes. But, sweet Celestia, it still hurt! "I'm just seeing stars." Derpy groaned, as she finally attempted to open her eyes.

"That nasty bump must've really hurt, then! It knocked your eyes out of alignment!" The party mare noticed. Though she had known Derpy for quite some time, she never bothered to notice that her philly friend's eyes had, in fact, always been that way. It wasn't that Pinkie was unobservant; quite the contrary. When it came to other ponies' imperfections, no matter how they presented themselves, she paid little heed to them, since everypony had their flaws and no pony liked for them to be addressed and likely judged for them.

At that comment, Derpy Hooves allowed her ears to splay; one of her eyes turning to the floor, while the other fixed on Pinkie's face. How could her friend not have known that her eyes had always been this way, when Pinkie tended to completely ignore ponies personal space and quite often initiate eye contact from disturbingly close proximity?

No matter, Derpy quickly concluded, so long as Pinkie was fine with it; which she was, and always had been, to be able to so easily not have ever taken notice of her condition, apparently. "Thank you for being concerned about me, Pinkie, but I'm fine, now." She spoke, at long last. The pain from her collision with the ceiling was beginning to subside, and Derpy didn't have the heart to tell Pinkie Pie that the accident hadn't been the cause of her wall-eyed gaze. "I'm not seeing stars anymore." Her vision as clear as it was going to get, she smiled reassuringly to her worrying friend.

"That's great!" Pinkie squealed with glee. In a flash, she was bouncing around, circling the grey pony who couldn't help but feel a smile of her own begin to tug at her lips. There was simply no way for anypony to feel discouraged in Pinkie's presence . "So now that you're not seeing stars; not that seeing stars isn't a blast! They're really pretty and there's just so many of them! Don't you think they look just like sparkly, shiny glitter?! I mean, who doesn't like glitter?! Nopony, that's who! And, oh yeah! How many fingers am I holding up?"

It wasn't that the puffy- haired pastry- loving pony didn't trust Derpy's confirmation that she was, in fact, fine now. But as a good friend of anypony in Ponyville, Pinkie simply had to make doubly sure. What kind of friend would she be if she didn't concern herself with making sure her friends were just as happy and safe as they could possibly be? So she held up both her hooves before Derpy's face, blowing hard into one hoof, which caused five short, pink, stubby nubs to appear on the opposite hoof. The alien nubs wriggled and jiggled wildly.

Unfortunately, Derpy was blind to the strange trick Pinkie had performed, as the pink pony's left, now fingered hoof hadn't been in line with Derpy's right eye, which had been trained on her friend's hooves. It was only because Pinkie had said left hoof closer to her face and then drawn back so quickly that The grey coat mare hadn't been given any time to allow her left eye to instead focus on Pinkie's closer hoof that she missed seeing those foreign fingers entirely, and so Derpy had no choice but to wonder what " fingers" were, exactly. And before she could open her mouth to even inquire, Pinkie pulled a chart with a random assortment of letters, big and small; capital and lowercase.

The origins of the chart, Derpy discovered, were as much a mystery to her as fingers were. It had seemingly been pulled right out of thin air! But thankfully enough, the chart was something she could see- to some extent, anyway.

"Can you read the third row of this chart?" Pinkie continued to question her befuddled friend. As Derpy proceeded to do as asked to confirm that her vision had returned to normal as it could for her, Pinkie nodded in satisfaction and tucked the chart away back from whence it came. Continuing on, she moved from in front of Derpy and appeared beside her in the very next moment. Can you see Wally?" She asked, pointing toward the floor with her hoof.

_'Wally? What in Equestria was a Wally?'_ Derpy had to ponder. Training one of her eyes on the precise spot where she thought the excitable mare had pointed to, the other eye drifted to the center, rather than south. She saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"No, now he's over _there_!" Pinkie screamed when Derpy moved too slowly to try and see just what she was talking about, and missed the first opportunity.

The bed-head mare spent the next two minutes trying to play " where's Wally?" With Pinkie being her usual hyperactive self and continuously popping in and out from one place to the next, it was made all the more difficult. Derpy considered herself a patient pony since she wished that some other ponies could show the same toward her; but she was beginning to tire of trying to spot something that she was starting to wonder existed only in Pinkie's vivid imagination. Her empty tummy growled and groaned, reminding the mussed mare to cut their time together short. "I'm afraid I don't see it."

"_Him_!" Pinkie was quick to correct her confused friend. "And he's right _there_, silly!" She pointed out. Deciding that Derpy needed a bit more help in pinpointing Wally's location, she reached out toward the grey pony and guided her head a smidge to the left.

Still seeing nothing in front of her, Derpy blinked her wall eyes, slow as an owl. She could try to cross her eyes in attempt to see what was right in front of her, rather than in two different directions, but that took a considerable amount of concentration, which was scarce with Pinkie around as a distraction. On top of that, having her eyes crossed for too long only resulted in throbbing headaches for the poor mare.

"Pinkie," Derpy Hooves sighed. "All I see are little, flickering black specks." This, though, was nothing new to doctors that she had been to said it these "eye floaters", as they called them, were actually a normal occurrence that everypony experienced.

The party mare grinned triumphantly. "That's Wally! He's the fourth wall! He's an omnipotent entity that can see eeeeeeverything! Completely curious and cool alternate dimensions, even! And he allows me to see it, too! A lot of other ponies don't seem to be able to see him, though; so I'm super duper ecstatically excited that you can see him! Isn't this fantastic?!" Overjoyed, Pinkie Pie shook her friend by the shoulders until Derpy's eyes rattled in her head.

_'I guess.'_ Was what Derpy wanted to say, but far be it for her to be the one to put a pin in and deflate Pinkie's high spirits. In actuality, this "fourth wall" talk scared her. There was no way that such a thing could ever exist! An omnipotent entity? Unrestricted sight into alternate dimensions?! Such things were only possible in works of fiction!

Her ears lay back on her head, and for a moment she had to wonder just what Mr. and Mrs. Cake put in their pastries to make Pinkie so...well...Pinkie.

A corner of Derpy's mouth twisted as she battled with her inner skepticism. Her mind raced to find the right words to say. What could she possibly say to something like this?! Blunt, white teeth began to nibble nervously against her bottom lip. Pinkie Pie was looking at her, expectantly. She had to say something...anything...

"Ooh! I almost forgot!" The familiar, high-pitched, bubbly voice broke through what seemed like an eternity of silence. "I promised to meet up with Fluttershy and teach her how to make my Nana Pie's super secret, awesomely delicious, fantasteriffic cupcakes!" She squealed in utter pink hooves barely touched the ground as she bounced around. "I'll just leave Wally here with you so you two can get to know each other better!" she giggled.

Finally finding her voice, Derpy nodded and moved toward the door to see Pinkie Pie out. "Thanks you for dropping by, Pinkie...it certainly was an...interesting visit." she smiled; always appreciating the sentiment, at the very least. However, she she noticed that her guest wasn't beside her, she turned just in time to see the azure-eyes pony vanish into a large, black hole that had appeared in the midst of the eye floaters.

"Bye, Derpy!" Pinkie called out as the giant hole suddenly closed in on itself, taking her with it.

Blinking in disbelief, Derpy stared, wide-eyed, at the space where her friend had vanished; whisked away through a portal of some sort. Could it possibly be...Wally? Was Pinkie's talk of this fourth wall actually real? She had seen it with her own wall-eyes! Or- Derpy reminded herself to close her mouth after her jaw had dropped at the sight of what had just occurred- perhaps it was her askew eyes that actually allowed her to see the fourth wall that Pinkie had passed through.

Or perhaps she was simply starting to hallucinate, thanks to her hunger pains.

Pale wisps of honey-colored strands whipped through the after as she shook her head. Trying too hard to figure out that crazy, pink party pony would only prove meaningless. With a gentler shake of her head, Derpy simply decided not to question the sight of this mysterious fourth wall that cleverly camouflaged itself amongst the eye floaters that she saw, on occasion. Instead, she trotted through the foyer that was void of any other ponies' presence but her own, and headed for the kitchen.

"Let's go, Wally." She found herself humming. "breakfast awaits."


End file.
